The Impacts of Mobile Social Media on Collective Action: Two Case Studies
Case 2: Case 2: Mobile Social Media for Confl ict Transformation in Indonesia
8.4 Conclusion
In this chapter we examined two case studies of how mobile social media has been used for collective action across two different cultural contexts. In both cases there is evidence pointing to the spread of meaningful messages and the presence of social capital embedded specifi cally via mobile networks, both of which are essen- tial for collective action. In other words, mobile social media may be the key to mobilizing people for collective action. With general social media becoming main- stream and adopted by the masses, social networks have become larger and more
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public than ever. Yet for collective action to be successful or possible, social net- works need to be smaller and meaningful (or at least participants’ perceptions of it).
Our cases show that mobile social media may be the way to form such meaningful networks for collective action.
Through the discussion we make several propositions. One proposition we make is for all research on mobile social media based in Asia to begin by clarifying the technological unit of analysis – structural features and spirit – as well as a rich description of the socio-cultural context in which particular mobile social media platforms are used. For example, describe who are the actors, what are their motiva- tions and goals, what is the climate of participation, and the social norms.
Recognizing that both technologies and human actors have agency (even if they may not exercise it) highlights the need to study mobile social media in terms of the interactions between particular technological platforms and context, rather than only emphasizing the effects of technologies on context, or vice versa.
Along with this point, we also call for attention to context-based research and designing research methodologies that can help to capture latent nuances which may be concealed in language , historical context, spatial relations between users and mobile phones, and social norms. We also highlight pressing gaps and limita- tions for future research to address.
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